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This blog is a place where people can leave messages in memory of animals that were special to them in some way. In exchange they will be asked to make a donation to a charity called FRAME, that raises money to find ways to carry out science experiments without using animals.

Visit www.justgiving.com/Mitch-Monkey and leave a donation (minimum £5 please) and don't forget to mention who it's in memory of. Then come back here and make a comment on the latest post. When the donation is cleared by Just Giving I'll make your In Memoriam post visible.

Thursday, 26 July 2012

Kitten eyes and silly people

There's been a lot of fuss about some scientists at Cardiff sewing kittens' eyes shut to investigate what happens in people's brains when they have 'lazy eye'.

Without even considering the fact that sewing an animal's eyes shut is horrible, why do they think that finding out what's going on in in the brain when someone can't see is anything to do with having a lazy eye?

Then we have the question of whether or not what happens in a kitten's brain is anything remotely similar to what goes on in a human brain. Probably not.

And THEN there's the problem of how you treat whatever it is they discover. Suppose the ideal 'cure' is aspirin. Well they won't ever know that because ASPIRIN KILLS CATS! Using cats as test subjects is already a blind alley. (Sorry about that. It's not supposed to be a joke.)

Let me say again. Stop testing things on animals because:

the results you get are NOT relevant to humans

the methods are NOT the best way, let alone the only way

there are plenty of cell-based and tissue-based alternatives

'just because you'd like to know' isn't a good enough reason to hurt animals

Help FRAME to overcome these dreadful tests by making a donation today. Click on my Just Giving button on the right.

Of course it's not only the scientists who are being silly about this. Some of the people who are against animal testing don't help the cause by being rude, suggesting that the scientists should have nasty things done to them, saying that we should test on criminals and paedophiles. That is just as wrong as the animal testers. Sorry - but it is!

Learn the science, people. Talk to the researchers in terms they understand and respect. Then MAYBE we're in with a chance!